Catholic Church sees rise in interest in the priesthood

There's a Northeast Ohio tie in this Religion News Service story noting that the Catholic Church in the United States “has a new statistic to cheer: More men are now enrolled in graduate level seminaries, the main pipeline to the priesthood, than in nearly two decades.”
This year's tally of 3,694 graduate theology students “represents a 16 percent increase since 1995 and a 10 percent jump since 2005,” according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Seminary directors “cite more encouragement from bishops and parishes, the draw of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the social-justice-minded Pope Francis, and a growing sense that the church is past the corrosive impact of the sexual abuse crisis that exploded in 2002,” Religion News Service reports.
One person who says he felt “a calling in my heart” toward the church is Kevin Fox, who walked away from his electrical engineering degree and a job working with CT scanners to enter St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe this fall.
“I always had an inkling that I might want to be a priest and my parish priest told me he thought I might be called,” Mr. Fox, 24, tells Religion News Service. “But I put it aside.”
He has a degree from Case Western Reserve University and got his first post-graduation job, but Mr. Fox tells the news service that he soon realized the secular path “wasn't filling my soul with joy.”
Now, after years of pure science, Mr. Fox “is immersed in pure theology” — and he loves it, Religion News Service says.
“I feel the church has done a great deal to deal with (preventing) abuse and the seminary took a lot of care in screening and training us to make sure we are the good guys,” Mr. Fox says.
He's one of 72 students currently enrolled in the undergraduate and graduate programs at St. Mary, the highest number in decades, said the Rev. Mark Latcovich, president and rector.

False and misleading

In today's Wall Street Journal, columnist Daniel Henninger urges Republicans to let Obamacare collapse, arguing that if it “fails, or seriously falters, the entitlement state will suffer a historic loss of credibility with the American people.”
Fair enough, even if you don't agree.
But here's what's not fair. Midway through the column, Mr. Henninger writes, “Because of Obamacare, the Cleveland Clinic has announced early retirements for staff and possible layoffs.”
That is false. It has been well-documented as false by national publications such as The Atlantic, which a well-read person like Mr. Henninger surely knows. (Here's Crain's Sept. 18 story, by health care reporter Timothy Magaw, about the Clinic's plans.)
“Think of it this way,” The Atlantic writes. “These are all steps that the Cleveland Clinic was likely to take, but Obamacare implementation is acting as a catalyst, spurring the Clinic to adopt them now rather than on a slower timeline.”
That's quite different from what Mr. Henninger writes.

Hard to argue

GQ magazine ranks the 20 worst sports franchises of all time, and No. 1 will be quite familiar to you.
Actually, No. 1 is three teams — “every Cleveland sports franchise,” as GQ puts it.
From the story:
To the great people of Cleveland: Look, you gave us Harvey Pekar, and apparently you've got a world-class orchestra. But facts are facts, and since your city is, even now, synonymous with Akron-born LeBron James, let's look at the curse of Cleveland sports from his perspective.
Between the Browns, the Indians, and the Cavaliers, Cleveland last celebrated a title four years before LeBron's mother was born —that's a combined 152 seasons of futility. James ditched the Cavs not because he was the Whore of Akron but because he was the Oracle of Ohio. In his formative years, he witnessed Cleveland teams suffer The Drive (John Elway beating the Browns in 1987), The Fumble (Earnest Byner sabotaging the Browns in 1988), The Shot (Michael Jordan murdering the Cavs in 1989), and then The Move, when Art Modell decided Cleveland was such a hole he'd rather field his team in Baltimore.
James surely knew that if he stayed in Ohio, some kind of ridiculous fate would befall him—The Hangnail, The Cramp, or maybe The Aneurysm. Hence: The Decision.You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.

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